We spoke to some of the advocates in Tommy's anti-conversion therapy t-shirt campaign.

After a ruling by a Brazilian federal judge in September effectively approved the use of gay conversion therapy — which the Human Rights Campaign characterizes as "a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression" — a bold T-shirt campaign called “Cura Gay” has been launched to fight back.

According to The Guardian, the ruling by federal judge Waldemar de Carvalho stemmed from an incident in 2016 when psychologist Rozangela Justino offered to convert gay people to heterosexuality with the so-called treatments at her practice. The judicial decision has received much backlash and led to the prominent hashtag, #curagay. But amid anti-LGBTQ violence and rhetoric, prominent LGBTQ figures have pushed back. In late September, thousands marched through the streets of São Paulo to protest the federal ruling.

Tommy Dorfman, a notable LGBTQ advocate, jumped into action upon hearing about the conversion-therapy ruling in Brazil.

“When I heard the news of Waldemar de Carvalho issuing a ruling to approve gay conversion therapy in Brazil, after it was banned for nearly 20 years, my heart broke,” Tommy stated in a previous interview with The Advocate. ”This idea that you can 'cure' homosexuality is appalling and simply not true. There is no Cura Gay (gay cure), there’s just Gay. Or not. Or however you identify, and nobody should have a say over something so personal and inherent.”

Tommy added that he felt a strong calling to do something and he eventually reached out to illustrator Paul Tuller, who had designed a shirt in support of LGBTQ people in Chechnya, Russia, and they came up with a design for Cura Gay together.

From there, the T-shirt campaign was born and a broad coalition of LGBTQ advocates were assembled to promote it. Two of them, Adam Eli Werner of Voices 4, and popular photographer, Jack Juliar, spoke with Teen Vogue about the importance of the project.

Jack, who has an Instagram following of around 70,000, realized the power of the LGBTQ influence on the art world when he was in college. Jack said that Tommy reached out to him about the project: “After I had found out what the project was there was never any hesitation. I knew it was important, so it was kind of a no-brainer-type thing," he told Teen Vogue.

Adam, one of the models for the campaign, began his grassroots and social media activism following the massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, and the presidency of Donald Trump. Adam helped establish Voices 4 Chechnya, an organization that demands the end of anti-LGBTQ violence in Chechnya. He helped organize a rally on October 14, in New York City that drew hundreds of protesters.

Adam told Teen Vogue his activism is “rooted in my Jewish background and Jewish philosophy....I accepted Tommy's invitation to join the Cura Gay campaign because of the Talmudic principle 'Kol Yisrael Aravim Zeh Bazeh: All Israel Is Responsible for One Another.' In our scripture, culture, and tradition, Jewish people have the obligation to take care of other Jews simply because they are Jewish. I feel the exact same way about being queer. If you are queer and in trouble I feel a responsibility to help no matter where you may be. You mess with one queer and you mess with us all. In the organization I helped start, Voices 4, we refer to this idea as a Gay Global Consciousness. The Cura Gay campaign is perfectly in line with that.”

All of the proceeds raised from the T-shirt campaign will be donated to Groupo Gay de Bahia in an effort to help the LGBTQ community in Brazil. Click here to learn more.